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This database was created and is curated by Barbara Flueckiger, professor at the Department of Film Studies, University of Zurich. Please see more information about the project here. Support the further development of Timeline of Historical Film Colors via Stripe.

In 2013 the University of Zurich and Swiss National Science Foundation awarded additional funding for the elaboration of this web resource. 80 financial contributors sponsored the crowdfunding campaign Database of Historical Film Colors with more than USD 11.100 in 2012. In addition, the Institute for the Performing Arts and Film, Zurich University of the Arts provided a major contribution to the development of the database. Many further persons and institutions have supported the project, see acknowledgements.

Follow the links “Show detailed information →” to access the currently available detail pages for individual processes. These pages contain an image gallery, a short description, a bibliography of original papers and secondary sources connected to extended quotes from these sources, downloads of seminal papers and links. We are updating these detail pages on a regular basis.

Timeline of Historical Film Colors

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Handschiegl / DeMille-Wyckoff / Wyckoff Process

Year

Principle

Invented by

Max Handschiegl and Alvin Wyckoff

Description

Similar to stenciling, the Handschiegl process was applied mechanically to manually defined image parts. Therefore it is an applied color process.

After the film was shot and edited, for each color applied a separate print was made. In contrast to stenciling, the image parts which were to be colored were covered with an opaque paint. Subsequently a dupe-negative was made. A tanning developer hardened the gelatin in the exposed areas while leaving the blocked-out areas soft. The softer parts absorbed the acid dyes which were then transferred onto the positive print during an imbibition process. Usually up to three colors were applied to a film. The process allowed for subtle blending of different colors.

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“ABOUT eight years ago Mr. Max Handschiegl began the coloring of motion picture films by a system generally known by the term ‘imbibition.’ Mr. Handschiegl’s previous experience had been in the engraving business in St. Louis and other places and he sought to apply the knowledge gained in that field to the coloring of films.

In a broad sense he has utilized the printing press method of inking from a matrix or similar surface. Imbibition merely means the transfer of a dye from one surface or body to another. He uses a color plate, corresponding to the engravers’ cut or block, which is in gelatine on a celluloid base and which may be a smooth surface with dye selective areas or a matrix with raised portions.

Probably the best known of his early work was in the De Mille picture Joan, the Woman. The procedure in such an example is for the producer to supply a positive print. From this original print, by various means, which involve printing, etching, or hand blocking, a photographic registering print is made that contains only the sections of the picture that are to be colored. If more than one color is to be transferred, then a separate plate is made for each of the colors. Fire scenes are made as a rule with a single color but the majority of the films colored by this process are done with three colors. A knowledge of the blending of three colors and the engravers’ experience with the three-color printing inks is of great value.

This system of coloring is used exclusively for productions already completed. After a production has been cut and edited, the scenes that are to be colored should be joined into one reel, a positive print made with the same perforations as the negative, which also should be printed on a registering printer, and from this print the “color plate” is generated. Once the color plate is made in this manner, the prints for distribution may be made with different perforations, as the coloring machines can register independently of the perforations.

The preparation of the ‘color plate’ is the result of hand operations. This takes time and careful work as each frame in the reel must be gone over by hand. There is no room for careless work. The final result can be only as accurate as the hand blocking-out. These blocked-out prints are known as ‘key plates’ and once made will continue in service till the subject is worn out. As an example, some prints were made during September this year for which the ‘key plates’ and ‘color plates’ were made 5 years ago. The ‘color plates’ can be used until worn out or ruined by some accident. There does not seem to be any limit to the number of prints that can be pulled.

Some of the better known productions that have used this system of coloring are:

Joan

The Woman

The Red Light

Greed, Irene

The Volcano

The Flaming Forest

Phantom of the Opera

The Merry Widow

The Big Parade, Sally

Seven Keys to Baldpate

The Viennese Medley

The Splendid Road, Mike

Lights of Old Broadway

As a result of working for many years with the subtractive form of natural color photography it was decided that this purely chemical process is incapable of giving satisfactory results under all conditions imposed in practice. Accordingly the idea sprouted forth that if a black and white record made in silver could be used as the base for a color picture that the tints could be applied by mechanical means.”

“As worked by Handschiegl, his process is not what we usually term a natural color process. The most successful use for his system is in applying tints of color to the customers’ own make of black-and- white prints. Good scenic prints and excellent work on titles are produced, but the method is most frequently used for giving “spotting” effects, such as in showing a red cross on the side of an ambulance, Will Rogers blushing in The Connecticut Yankee, or in fire scenes, which are also well adapted for coloring by this system. In nearly every instance the customer furnishes the prints in the customary black-and-white stage. The color is applied mechanically, differing in this respect from hand coloring methods. The color tints, when blended, produce very beautiful effects.

Handschiegl started in the photoengraving and lithographic business and was very skilful at blending colors and producing satisfactory matrices. As this skill was largely individual, it died with him. The making of the master positive, from which the matrices were made, received Handschiegl’s personal attention. They are obtained by printing back and forth until the parts to be colored stand out from the balance of the picture. The next step is the “blocking out” process, done by hand. This consists in painting out the parts not wanted or in shading those that are needed. From this master, the prints or matrices are made. The matrix print is developed in the usual way, then bleached in a bath that hardens the gelatin surrounding the silver particles, leaving the clear portions soft as is possible. The bleached print is then immersed in a saturated solution of the dye in water, say, about two pounds of dry dye to five gallons of water, is next passed through blowers or wipers for removing surplus dyes and finally to a drying set of rollers. From such a matrix about two impressions of the same density are made and the matrix is again dyed. The life of the matrix is 40 runs. The dyes used are acid dyes and not especially of Pinatype nature.

The machines for “imbibing” the dyes have three impression drums of about 12 inches in diameter with sprocket teeth that are not full fitting. Each machine has three drums, enough to use three colors in one passage through the machine. At each of the three drums provision is made for drying the matrix while the positive continues over two or three of the impression wheels, according to the number of color tints required. The positive receiving the impressions passes from one color to the next, all three colors being applied one over the other and the blank is not dried until finished.

At the start of operations the positive which is to receive the colors is fed through damping means consisting of water and oxgall, receiving considerable wetting. Just before the two films are fed to the impression drum, emulsion to emulsion, each film is fed over a train of sprocket wheels designed to give tension for longitudinal registration, while lateral registration is attained from the adjustable lateral positions given the sprocket wheels. Discrepancies that might occur in registration are negligible, due to the color tints being imbibed on black silver prints which tends to hide the faulty registration.

Attempts were made to apply color from color-selective negatives using this system. A black-and-white print was made from the negatives taken with a red filter. To this print were applied two complementary colors by means of matrices made from positives of each of the original two-color negatives. This produced some very excellent results, the main difficulty being that anything “black” in the subject received the greatest quantity of dye from the matrix which, when imbibed to the positive print, inclined to splash over where it would show the most.

At the speed of 360 feet an hour these matrices did not produce sufficient color on a blank for the transfers to make strong enough blacks to be used as prints without the keys, but for tinting, gave plenty of color.

The system is what is generally known as Pinatype. Blacks can be produced and the system is capable of making imbibed prints on a blank, but Handschiegl did not set up to do this type of work. Attempts were made to colortone positive prints one color and then apply a complementary color by imbibition. To tone such a print it was not found possible to use any known color toning system without producing some relief or differential hardness on the surface of the print, even when printed to the back. For that reason it was not found practicable to make color prints in this way.

The use of basic dyes for the imbibition work is not wholly successful, the principal fault being lack of smoothness, and acid dyes were relied upon.

The matrices produce some relief in the surface but not as great as in the wash-out method. Positive prints of a quality suitable for making dupe negatives are the best. These were bleached in a bath composed of a copper salt, and bichromate, the latter controlling the hardness.

There is a great similarity in the finished product of Handschiegl and that of Pathechrome. Both produce tints applied to positive black-and-white silver prints and both call for hand work in the preparation of the matrices. Both, also, can use the trained experience of lithographers, artists, etc., as many of the colors are produced by overlapping the colors and securing blends.”

“Stencilling seems not to have been common in the United States, and its place was taken, in effect, by the Handschiegl process of 1916, also called the Wyckoff Process and the De Mille Process. This produced prints of similar appearance and was used to colour some fifteen or twenty films. The process used conventional lithographic printing to create separate printing plates to make up to three colours for printing onto a conventional black and white print (effectively a three colour graphic arts process). The areas to be coloured were defined by hand for every frame. De Mille’s Joan the Woman was an early film to use this process. Eric von Stroheim’s Greed also used it (as well as printing onto yellow tinted film for some sections). The sources of dye information for the Handschiegl process have always been limited to Kelley (1931), and as there appear to be no other data this secondary source should be accepted with some reserve, especially as he omits listing the blue or cyan dye.”

“Thus a craftsman’s method, similar to the procedures of a studio for applied graphics, proved unable to meet the industry’s demands. The amount of work required by the Handschiegl process was comparable to the labour involved in hand colouring or stencilling film, since the area of the internegative matrix to be coloured had to be traced by hand, frame by frame. The Handschiegl image has the look of early films, but its pastel colours have a much greater transparency and a subtler texture, which gives an atmospheric quality to the scene. While direct colouring appears as imposed upon the objects represented, like a lacquer overlay altering contrast values and drastically weakening detail, this system seems to coexist well with the photographic image, and to endow it with a liquid softness that is almost tactile. Because of this quality, DeMille and Handschiegl preferred above all to use it for scenes with mutable elements like water and fire: Joan the Woman (1916) has a Handschiegl final scene where Geraldine Farrar’s body is enveloped in flame and smoke; in The Ten Commandments (1923), the Egyptian army, pursuing the Hebrews in the desert, is first obstructed by a barrier of fire, then drowned in the Red Sea where the Pharaoh and his horse are immersed in brilliant emerald foam. No less remarkable is the glowing yellow of a golden tooth in a surviving frame (Plate 55) of Erich von Stroheim’s Greed (1925). Projected on a large screen, original Handschiegl colour has the power to dazzle the eye in a way that no reproduction can possibly imitate. While it is true that all modern copies of any original colour process reduce its impact, Handschiegl is virtually impossible to duplicate without a fatal loss of its outstanding pictorial attributes. Existing viewing copies make it look like a faded Technicolor, or a hand-coloured film worn out by time; sadly enough, there is no way to fully appreciate it without viewing the original. This makes its rarity and extreme physical vulnerability all the more lamentable, reinforcing as it does the notion of the photographic moving image as a simulacrum of a ‘present’ lost to our time, witnessed by no one other than the audience of the past.”

(Cherchi Usai, Paolo (2000): Silent Cinema. London: BFI, pp. 32-33.)

“A process for the mechanical application of colour to a film strip was devised by Max Handschiegl in 1916, who, with Alvin Wyckoff, brought it to commercial application in America in the-early 1920s.

A separate print was made for each colour to be applied. Each frame was blocked out with opaque paint in the areas to which colour should be applied. A duplicate negative was made from the blocked out print, developed in a tanning developer which hardened the gelatin layer where it had been exposed and developed. Those areas corresponding to the blocked out areas on the print remained relatively soft, and capable of taking up dye. This dyed matrix film was brought into contact, in accurate register, with a positive print, to which the dye transferred in the appropriate areas. The print made several passes through the dye transfer machines, in contact with a separate matrix for each colour. Usually, three colours were applied. The process was used for, among other films, Cecil B. de Mille’s Joan, the Woman (1917) (for which the process was developed), Greed (1924), Volcano (1926), Phantom of the Opera (1930), The Merry Widow (1925), The Big Parade (1925) and The Lights of Broadway (1925).”

The Handschiegl Process was invented in 1916 by Max Handschiegl and Alvin Wyckoff of the Famous Players-Lasky Corp. Studio Laboratory. In principle this process was the application of multicolor lithographing techniques to motion pictures. Dye was transferred from a matrix or color plate to selected areas of a black and white print.

This process was first developed for the De Mille picture Joan the Woman; it was advertised first as the Wyckoff Process then the De Mille-Wyckoff Process. Later it became popular as the Handschiegl Process.11 Some of the other productions that used this process12 were The Red Light, Greed, Irene, The Volcano, The Flaming Forest, Phantom of the Opera, The Merry Widow, The Big Parade, Sally, Seven Keys to Baldpate, The Viennese Medley, The Splendid Road, Mike, and Lights of Broadway.

As used by Handschiegl the process was not an attempt to produce natural color photography. In its early form it was used principally to apply color to selected areas within a scene. The customer furnished normal black and white prints which were colored by dye transfer with one, two or three dyes. If more than one color was to be transferred, then a separate plate was made for each of the colors.

After a production had been edited a print was made of the scenes that were to be colored on a registration step printer. This print was blacked out with opaque material in the area which was to be colored; 13 this could be done by hand with a brush or other suitable instrument.

From this print a duplicate negative was made. After development the duplicate negative was clear in the areas which were to be colored. The remaining areas contain a negative silver image. At this point the process makes use of the effect that a gelatin emulsion becomes more insoluble or harder in those areas acted upon by light than in those areas where no exposure takes place. The duplicate negative was immersed in a tanning bleach which fixed and solidified the exposed and developed portions of the scene, hardening them so that they would not absorb dye, but not affecting the viscous consistency of the unexposed or clear portions of the scene. When bleaching was completed the negative was fixed, washed and dried. The bleached negative was then immersed in a saturated solution of dye in water, approximately two pounds of dry dye to five gallons of water. The surplus dye was removed by squeegeeing and the negative dried once more. It was then ready for transfer, by pressure and contact, to the positive prints. The print to be colored passed into a solution of oxgall and water which softened and wetted the emulsion sufficiently to dissolve and absorb dye from the negative film. Contact time varied depending on the area and amount of dye to be transferred. Time could be changed by changing the position of the keeper roller. One dyeing of the negative was good for transferring dye of equal density to two release prints. The life of the negative matrix was 40 runs, 14The machines for imbibing the dyes are described in USP 1303836. Each machine had three transferring stations consisting of a large sprocketed drum approximately 12 inches in diameter and two smaller adjustable sprockets. Both the matrix and the release print were stretched onto the large wheel to provide vertical register; horizontal register was provided by micrometer adjustment of the smaller sprockets (Fig. 5).

A satisfactory bleach for the duplicate negative was:

Potassium dichromate 19·0 grams

Potassium bromide 28·0 grams

Potassium ferricyanide 19·0 grams

Acetic acid 5·0 ml

Potassium alum 25·0 grams

Water to 1.0 liter

Dyes of the acid type were used such as:

Pontacyl light red 4bl

Pontacyl carmine 2g

Pontacyl carmine 2b

Alizarin Rubinol R

Fig. 5 Handschiegl dye transfer machine. The bleached and dyed negative is brought into contact with the positive on a large sprocket drum for transfer of dye.

“A somewhat related method of applying color to black and white films was invented in 1916 by Max Handschiegl, a St. Louis engraver, and Alvin Wyckoff of the Famous Players-Lasky Studio Laboratory,15 under the guidance of Cecil B. DeMille. This system, generally called the Handschiegl Process, incorporates the application of multicolor lithographing techniques to motion pictures (see Appendix C). According to the Moving Picture World, DeMille specifically sought to perfect a system which would preclude “glaring and noticeable colors,” preferring, instead, to develop a process capable of softer and more subdued tints than generally incorporated in Pathécolor .16

“We have been working slowly and cautiously on this process for the past two years,” said Mr. DeMille, “and have studied color photography in all its branches. We have come to the conclusion that color photography, in the sense of absolutely faithful reproduction of natural colors, or any method of coloring where the tints used are of the glaring variety, can never be used universally in motion pictures, for the eye of the spectator would be put to too great a strain, and the variety of the colors would distract the attention from the story values. It would be as though a person looked out of a car window at a highly colored panorama of action and scenery during a two or three hour journey. One cannot look out over fields of brightly colored flowers continuously for even an hour without terrific eye strain.
… The moment the spectator says, ‘Oh, look how green the grass is,’ or ‘How blue the sea,’ the value of the color is gone; it has proved too greatly distracting. The color effect we get and those we are working for resemble somewhat the shades and color tones used in Du Lac’s famous illustrations.”17

DeMille held to this conviction for many years, and numerous productions of his incorporated the Handschiegl Process — often applying color only to selected areas within a limited number of scenes per picture.

Writing in 1923 DeMille states:

There is no question . . . about the success of tints and dyes when these are used to heighten an effect. In most of my productions I use film colors by dyes, but as the moving figures still appear in tones of grey and black these are not trying to the eyes. They are used only to heighten a certain effect . . . and in most cases the audiences are not conscious that a color is ever used. 18

Furthermore, DeMille felt certain that “natural color” films would never be accepted by theater audiences. Citing color sensitivities among individuals, he continued by saying:

“Red irritates one group, another finds blue objectionable and a third set of people balks at yellow.
Supposing each group formed ten percent of a potential audience, there would be insurmountable difficulties in producing a natural color photoplay that would appeal to everybody.19

This observation would soon be challenged by Herbert T. Kalmus of the Technicolor Corporation, and a year later DeMille agreed to release The Ten Commandments with “natural color” scenes. Nevertheless, the subdued, pastel colors of the Handschiegl Process continued to be incorporated in a number of important feature films until 1928.

Handschiegl had become highly skilled in his blending of colors and in producing precision matrices. The making of the master positives, from which these matrices were made, always received Handschiegl’s personal attention.20 Unfortunately, he was unable to pass this skill along to others, and it died with him in 1928. No longer would theater audiences see the process used for giving “spotting effects”, such as in showing a red cross on the side of an ambulance, Will Rogers blushing in The Connecticut Yankee, or in fire scenes.21 (See Appendix D for a listing of films utilizing the Handschiegl process.)”

References:

15 Roderick T. Ryan, A Study of the Technology of Color Motion Picture Processes Developed in the United States (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Southern California, September 1966), (Ann Arbor, Mich.: University Microfilms, Inc., 1979), p. 36.